Underserved LA Neighborhood Goes Green at New Sustainable Transit Hub

Willowbrook/Rosa Parks station in Los Angeles gets upgrade with new commuter-friendly features and green infrastructure, including Silva Cells supporting trees in the renovated plaza

Overview

One of the busiest transit hubs on Los Angeles’s Metro line, the Willowbrook/Rosa Parks station had by 2018 outgrown its size, requiring a redesign to meet rising commuter demand. The new station, designed by Stantec (with the landscape architecture component spearheaded by AHBE/MIG), aimed to make the facility not only safer and more pedestrian friendly, but also to make it a sustainable and functional resource for the traditionally underserved community. The redeveloped outdoor plaza — which can be repurposed for small local gathering events as needed — embraced natural vegetation, including ten new shade trees planted in Silva Cells (improving the area’s air quality and offering waiting passengers a shady and comfortable respite from the hot California sun).

Installation Summary

Number of Silva Cells: 240 (2x)

Amount of Soil Volume Per Tree: 600-750 ft³ (two shared trenches)

Number of Trees: 10

Type of Project: Plaza

Project Designer: AHBE (MIG)

Project Contractor: Icon West

Installation Date of Silva Cells: Summer 2019

The New Rosa Parks Station

Located in the Willowbrook neighborhood of Los Angeles, the Rosa Parks station has been servicing commuters since 1990. As the transportation needs of the community grew in the ensuing decades, an upgrade initiative was spurred in 2018 as part of a $100+ million Metro Blue Line renovation project.

The purpose of the redesign was not only to meet demands of local commuters but also to make the station safer and more pedestrian and bicycle friendly. The new station — which reopened in 2021 as a “state-of-the-art transit hub” — included a number of new buildings (including a “customer center”), bus bays, a bike hub, improved walking connectivity, and shelter areas. “Metro brings equity to this underserved community,” observed Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins. “Navigating this station has never been so convenient and easy. Everything is here to make a seamless journey for customers and to enhance the customer experience for residents of Willowbrook and surrounding areas.”

Redesigning the outdoor plaza area — and making it welcoming, safe, and comfortable, as well as a versatile community space — was an equally important element of this project. The new plaza, according to Stantec (who spearheaded the station’s redesign), includes “open-air space with large planters and seating areas [to serve] as a public resource to be used for community events year-round to enrich and celebrate the Wilmington community.” Amy Chang of Stantec notes that “the revitalized facility will provide thousands of patrons with improved access to many of LA’s most critical amenities, while enhancing the busy station’s role as a key community resource.”

Sustainability and Plaza Trees

Part of the project objectives, as laid out in the original plans, called for improvements that were “consistent with regional sustainability goals related to air quality improvements and reductions in greenhouse gasses.” Likewise, the county was even more specific about their sustainability goals (including for trees) in their 2018 transit-oriented district plans, which called for a broad community commitment to a “consistent canopy of shade trees throughout the area to enhance pedestrian comfort.”

Indeed, one of the most powerful tools in this drive for sustainability and community comfort is the inclusion of large, healthy trees.

AHBE/MIG, the landscape architecture team in charge of redesigning the outdoor space, notes that the new plaza includes a “drought-tolerant, regionally-appropriate plant palette [that] will mitigate stormwater runoff and support the resilience of new canopy trees in the main plaza.” These 10 new hardscape trees were planted in Silva Cells in 2019. Two long trenches of uninterrupted soil volume are providing these new plantings with access to loamy, lightly compacted soil — approximately 600 to 750 cubic feet each in a shared environment. Stormwater from the plaza can also be directed into this planting soil, which helps clean runoff pollutants while simultaneously providing supplemental irrigation to these trees.

The Rosa Parks station, according to the Metro’s own website, is the second-busiest station in the Metro system (30,000 riders per day) — and these customers not only have safe and comfortable access to and from the station, but also comfortable and inviting shade during their wait times.

Additional Resources

DeepRoot and AHBE/MIG also teamed up on the UCLA Luskin Center project. Read the case study here to learn more!